Comments on: Dell sell

By: dan

dan — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:24:49 +0000

DELL is bloated by bad service

Long gone are the days Dell was a trendsetter. Though their products aren’t bad, their client service is mostly horrifying. This may well be the very reason of their decline.

They’ve grown from a company tailoring products to the needs of their customers to a company taking their clients for stupid. Now, generally this isn’t a success formula (and it isn’t according to their market share loss).

By: sift every thing » » Customers like commodities

sift every thing » » Customers like commodities — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 01:06:53 +0000

[...] MacLeod from Jeff Jarvis on Dell: “The thing is, when you start turning your products into commodities, you start [...]

By: Jarrett

Jarrett — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 16:24:46 +0000

I have the same problem with dell. I switched to apple, never been happier.

By: Britishwookie

Britishwookie — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 06:27:11 +0000

I work at a Dell Kiosk we get the tech support telling them that they can run to us for help and to fix their pc. When they make the 30-40 minute drive, one I know because I live that far out, they are p’ed off when we tell them we can’t help them cause Dell won’t let us do anything but sell PCs. Also the management in the Kiosk sales is horrid I personally HATE my job with every fiber of my body. Hereâ€™s why:
1. I got training from a guy who wasn’t supposed to train us and told us most of the stuff we have to sell, service ect., doesnâ€™t matter and not to sell it. Then never taught us who to E-Mail for certain things. Now instead of retraining us they are just replacing us like they don’t care.
2. My co-worker asks our big boss why we where getting fired and he said that it was never meant to be a long term job.
3. Our boss is covering his own tracks making us look bad, lying about what customers can do with their Pcs, tell the big boss he’s training us when he’s playing on his, get this, Compaq (interesting story how he got it), everyone is using me as a scapegoat as well because I’m so tired trying to sort out the BS I get handed everyday I can’t concentrate.

On another note I have a XPSM1210 It rocks but I’m glad I’m a PC Technician, because you guys got guts going though Tech support but hereâ€™s a tip, and this works too, “Ask to be transferred to the Oklahoma call center because they have to honor that request. Don’t ask for someone who speaks English or they will just transfer you to another rep” Now I also have to feel pity on the Indian call center people just because they can’t understand most things, and they have to go through a BIG BOOK thatâ€™s wrote in BAD Indian. Any way I’m quitting my job their ASAP no questions asked. They have a 300% Turnover rate and I’m hoping I can make it topple over 400%.

By: Call Cruncher

Call Cruncher — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 21:55:22 +0000

Sorry you feel this way. We have purchased two laptops from Dell for our family and have loved them. Any time we have questions or problems Dell is very helpful and has always been very professional. I guess we are lucky!

By: burn_in_dell

burn_in_dell — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 23:00:48 +0000

I work in sales at Dhell and we’re constantly getting transfers from customer care. I sell them, I don’t fix them. Customer Care reps (usually from India) will instant message us and after trying to read thier crappy spelling they tell us the customer needs to purchase a new computer. They transfer the customer and after listening to the customer express thier great relief of finally contacting someone who can speak English, I find that NO, they don’t want to buy another system; they’re just trying to get the one they just purchased fixed! I Pull up thier profile and see that they’ve purchased the full blown 4yr warranty with Dhell on Call, At Home Service and Express Tech Support!!! I’m wondering why in the Dhell abduhl transferred them to me (pissed because it hurts my metrics and at the same time pissed off at my employer for having me mislead customers into thinking they’re going to get the help they need at the touch of a button) so I send them to, guess where; customer care. Hearing them scream as I hit the transfer button sending them into customer hell. I’m not sure where all the problems started but I do know I would never purchase anything other than a basic warranty and if I had troubles, I’d pay extra to have an english speaking tech fix it at the local pc store.

By: Sam DeRenzis

Sam DeRenzis — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 02:46:32 +0000

I bought a Dell XPS 400 recently. Long story short I trashed it to hell because it was terrible. The problems included:

1. Onboard sound created noise on the output. It was sad because the front audio jack for headphones also did it, thus the motherboard is flawed in design. They call the stuff blitter noise, how could they never have noticed it did that!

2. GeForce 6800 with 2GB DDR2 and still the system couldn’t run Oblivion or Fear without acting like a stuttering retard.

By: dee

dee — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 06:36:49 +0000

Dell support guys are crazym whenever there is a problem they seem to think it is completely normal THAT pull half my computer apart , put it back together and then reinstall all kinds of things including the OS.

By: Michael Bowin

Michael Bowin — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 21:17:08 +0000

Had 4 components fail on me within the first 3 months of getting the DELL laptop. Called their support #, on and off I was transferred to different departments. WORST support I ever got, even though only 3 month after I pourchased it. The prices are not that good once you think of the trouble you will go with them.

Do your self a favour and go with a reputable company like HP, Compaq, IBM ETC…

By: igor

igor — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 21:09:50 +0000

Bought a Dell Inspiron 2500. 3 month later my harddrive stopped working, called Dell Customer Service, they told me they will sent me a refurbished one, since it was a very poor quality slow drive as it is + now I would be stuck with a refurbished one, I went and bought a toshiba drive and replaced it my self. # month later my floppy drive went. Now I am stuck with a laptop that makes a loud buzzing sound which has been experienced in many of their laptops. The funny things is when I called them they said they never heard of anything like that, funny shince I read that at least a few thousand customers had this problem. Anyhow they said there is nothing they can do now since I am out of warranty. Oh and my sound card does not work either. NEVER ANOTHER DELL AGAIN!!!

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 20:31:21 +0000

Sort of a tangential thing, but it’s interesting to note Dell’s sales force sucks on the front end, too. A couple of months ago I was shopping for a new PC, and as a long-time Dell fan — I’ve probably bought a couple dozen Dells over the past 15 years for self, friends, family and businesses — I went to their website to see what the latest and greatest Dell was.

At one point they advertised a deep discount on a memory upgrade, but their on-line “configurator” wouldn’t allow that option to be selected, so I opened a chat session with a sales rep. Over the course of twenty minutes, where my only question was “Why can’t I select that option?” he completely ignored my problem and instead spent the entire time trying to sell me on their “preferred” credit card. I finally gave up in disgust and started pricing Apple G5s.

And when I tried to save the chat thread to forward to customer service, the app crashed.

So here I am, a pre-sold Dell fan, investing considerable time trying to help them sell me something (and spend even more money than the advertised price through upgrades) and they’ve absolutely chased away a practically slam-dunk sale.

Stupid.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 16:02:13 +0000

Apparently, your sentiments echo the industry numbers:
http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/story/0,10801,103959,00.html

Glad I beat the odds.

My Dell Inspiron 600m hard drive croaked after over 2 years of intense use. I diagnosed the problem myself when Windows refused to load using the Dell Diagnostic CD. Bracing myself for a horrible service experience, I grudgingly dragged myself to Dell’s online chat customer support. After a 5 minute chat session explaining my diagnostic steps and the problem, the service guy said, “No problem, you’re covered under your service plan. Do you know how to take out the old hard drive and install a new one?” I looked at the bottom of the laptop. The drive was held in by one screw. “Yeah, looks easy. I just take out the one screw and slide the drive out, right?” “Yes, that’s right. We’ll send you a new hard drive. It will go out today and arrive tomorrow. Please call or chat with us if you have any problems getting it installed.” I said great, will it have Windows pre-installed because I never got a Windows CD with my original PC? He said, “No, it doesn’t come with Windows pre-installed, but I’ll also make sure we send you a Windows Install CD, too.” He gives me a depot dispatch tracking number in case it doesn’t arrive.

Skeptical about promises like these, I had slim hopes of things happening as he said they would. But lo and behold, DHL delivers both the CD and the hard drive the next day. Unbelievable.

Would I have rather not needed the service at all? You best. But I had a *very satisfactory* customer service experience.

Guess I was lucky.

By: Brett

Brett — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 12:58:07 +0000

My Company purchased more than 60 dell machines just over 12 months ago. We too have fallen victim of Dell. So far 41 machines have had there hard drives fail or monitors die etc. I can’t beleive such a high profile company like Dell can sell such POS!
Dell will be a logo never displayed here ever!

By: Frederique Porter

Frederique Porter — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 09:13:35 +0000

I have had the worst service from dell too. I have a brand new Dell XPS. The plastic cover needs to be replaced. They want to send someone out to replace it. I finally gave in. The guy calls me and says that he want to come the following day, I tell him if you are going to come during business hours you need to visit my work place. He tells me he can’t do that, I need to call Dell back and change the address. I call Dell back, they want to change the address on the system as if I moved. Finally someone understood and said he would send someone out, no one called or showed up. I call Dell back, they say there is no call in the system for me. I have to speak with nearly 10 people and still I have no service call. I have had the system nearly a month. I really do love it! It broke my heart…I told them send me RMA, take it back. I just can’t spend nearly $4K and not be assured that I can get service. Now, they want me to pay restocking…Now, I have to fight them in court for my money. Also, I am going to report them to every agency, tell my story on every board and make sure more people are aware. I will make sure no one I know purchases a Dell. There service stinks, sooner it will catch up to them. They will pray for the days of loyal customers that really like their brand and tried hard to put up with them. Dell is the new NOVELL…Slowly they will eventually dissappear. Customers now want value and service, Dell jsut can’t cut the mustard.

I am fed up and I am not going to take it ANYMORE!!

By: triticale

triticale — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 19:06:19 +0000

A few years ago, I had a fairly productive dumpster-diving run collecting cast off business computers. I found that the Dell machines (and also some Compaqs) were sufficiently non-standard as to be less useful than machines from the local “white-box” houses. I could pull the drives, memory and i/o cards, but the cases, powersupplies and motherboards never worked with anything else. This sort of practice may shave pennies of the cost of manufacturing vast quantities, but they increase the cost of maintenance whoever is doing it.

Incidently, the largest share of the PC market in the US is not held by Dell, but by the sum total of all the local assemblers all over the country.

By: Jon

Jon — Sun, 28 Aug 2005 00:25:14 +0000

I too had (and am still having) an ongoing problem with an otherwise great Dell computer.

To date, I’ve spent over 7 hours getting transferred from Austin to India to engineers to customer services reps who didn’t understand that the RUBBER FOOT on the bottom of the laptop had fallen off and I wanted a new one to stick on there so it wouldn’t wobble all over when typing.

At the end of 7 hours, someone finally understood what I was asking for, and said, “Oh, you have to send the whole laptop back to us to replace that, as we cannot send just the rubber foot, we have to replace the entire bottom of the computer.”

Are you kidding? ARE YOU KIDDING?

OK, first, my inconvience, since my laptop IS my business and I use it every single day of the week. NO way am I sending it away for a month.

Second, Dell, seriously. You want to cut costs? Send me the &%&!^@! .05 cent rubber foot to stick on and save yourself the shipping costs, the labor costs, and part costs to replace the entire bottom shell of the computer.

STUPID.

(At this point, I pried off the foot still in the middle of the computer, and glued it onto the corner so that it’s at least stable…)

By: Kevin Welch

Kevin Welch — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 19:24:42 +0000

I have Dell desktop and while I am satisfied with the hardware, the support stinks. I have had numerous problems that the Dell “tech” was unable to fix, even though I have the extended Dell support. I have had to pay an outside thrid party to repair my PC. In addition, the Techs, while polite, speak very poor english and can only respond to questi0ons that are put forward to them in their manual. Venture off the page and they are lost.

I will never purchase another Dell product for my self and for my business!

By: Mike G

Mike G — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 16:54:49 +0000

What’s clear to me is that this is still nowhere near enough of a priority for Dell to deal with directly. Yes, it made it onto someone’s to-do list, who can be bothered to send Jeff a note requesting a call (what do you suppose the odds are that he got through to this woman the first time?) But imagine if a PC magazine columnist had written all this– Dvorak or somebody. Imagine if Walt Mossberg was writing about it in the WSJ. You think they wouldn’t have been on it like a SWAT team?

Dell, supposed leader in the computer business, doesn’t get the Internet yet. Doesn’t get that 50,000 readership here is exactly the same as 50,000 readership in a magazine. Dell, seller of broadband services, still thinks of online readers as second class citizens.

This is no surprise. I run into ad clients all the time still wed to the idea that only a few strange people are online. I had an argument with a Chomsky-spoutin’ prof who couldn’t be persuaded that blogs were reaching anybody compared to evil Fox News, even when I demonstrated how many blogs got twice the hits per day that any news channel had viewers. Too many people are still invested in the idea that TV and print are real media and online is pretend media. Apparently Dell is also one of these dinosaurs.

By: john flipflopper

john flipflopper — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 16:12:21 +0000

PC PATROL
Dell Finds Itself In Blog Hell

PC industry circles have been buzzing for months about slipping customer support at Dell (DELL ), a claim bolstered on Aug. 16 by a University of Michigan study that showed a hefty drop in customer satisfaction from a year ago. So the last thing Dell needed was for someone to turn the issue into a cause cÃ©lÃ¨bre.

Enter Jeff Jarvis. Over the summer the media critic and popular blogger began writing on his personal blog, BuzzMachine, about his lengthy quest to fix a $1,600 computer, an ordeal that, according to him, included countless e-mails, some unanswered, and phone calls to Dell’s service line. Jarvis wrote that he bought a service package that included in-home repairs, but when the PC overheated and malfunctioned, he was told to send it in. He did — and wrote that it still wasn’t working upon return. Jarvis launched a series of attacks, including an Aug. 17 open letter to CEO Michael Dell: “The bottom line is that a low-price coupon may have gotten me to buy a Dell, but your product was a lemon, and your customer service was appalling.” On Aug. 22, Jarvis finally got a refund. A day later he blogged that Dell’s new policy of tracking down unhappy bloggers “is a start.”

Jarvis’ rants struck a chord with other Dell customers. Daily visits to BuzzMachine have doubled, to over 10,000, estimates research firm Intelliseek. Among the responses: “Dude, get an Apple (AAPL ).” Dell is adding more call centers and improving training for phone reps, says consumer chief John Hamlin. As of Aug. 24, Dell had not replied to Jarvis’ open letter but says it is “happy to talk with him as a customer.” That might yield a happy ending — if he doesn’t get put on hold.

By Louise Lee
http://www.businessweek.com/@@OEOEM2cQnIg4fBsA/premium/content/05_36/c3949013_mz003.htm

By: Justin G. Mitchell

Justin G. Mitchell — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 11:31:40 +0000

A little over a year ago when my brother went to buy a house, Dell screwed him over temporarily. He had bought a computer and used their financing. Big mistake. He thought he had paid it off because he hadn’t recieved any bills in 5 months or so. Well when he went to the loan officer, they told him he had this unpaid bill from Dell that had been turned over to collections and could cause problems. Total of the unpaid balance $4 and change. I don’t recommend Dell to anyone. Not even my enemies.

By: john flipflopper

john flipflopper — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 07:11:39 +0000

i am sick with dell too:

here is the answer from SOFTEXINC:

The Softex Docking Software is designed strictly for Windows NT only. Windows XP shold load the drivers for the docking station on it’s own according to Dell. You may want to go to http://www.support.dell.com and look up to see if they have anyth8ing for your computer for XP. I know they used to have a saoftware called quickdock or quickinstall that was used on windows 2000 to replace docking services software.

Rick Hutchinson
Softex Support
===============================
look like dell points to softex then softex points to dell

shall we buy any dell notebook with softex software ????????/
look at the spelling of this Rick hutchinson — does he pass grade 8 ??

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=latit_general&message.id=38397#M3...

By: Rob Schneider

Rob Schneider — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 07:10:14 +0000

I experinced same sort of call from Dell this week. I am pretty sure that when I ordered the machine I checked the appropriate “do not call” box. In true cold-caller-world-class way, they phone right in the middle of the family dinner. Wanted to know how I like the Dell, etc. etc. I didn’t really say (actually nothing wrong with the machine but I didn’t tell them). I asked why they called and he said it was to offer me an extended warranted. At that point I lost it. I told him that he interrupted our family dinner to call me without my authoritistion/approval to try to make me pay for Dell’s potentially shoddy quality. I told him that I would have non of it. I further told him, that along with Jeff Jarvis, I was ceasing any future business relationship between Dell and me, and Dell and my company. Finished. Followed up with an email to customer service which I’m sure won’t get noticed. The sad thing is they won’t miss my business either. Neither will I, though.

By: dusty

dusty — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 04:48:39 +0000

I am speechless. This is just absolutely ridiculous. It seems that they would have at least tagged your name in their customer service system after all this has been going on! I used to be proud of Dell, being from Austin, but now I’m sickened and will warn all my friends against buying a Dell. Me, I’m a Mac girl, as is my entire company and all my friends.

By: David

David — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 04:31:03 +0000

My dell customer service experience was one of the worst I’ve ever had with any company. When I called them about my hard drive on my inspiron that crashed after merely 6 months. I basically was given the run-around. The first technician, after realizing he couldn’t fix the problem, transferred me to another Dell person. But, of course he transferred me to someone who only dealt with desktops, so after talking to that woman for a minute or two, she transferred me to a third guy who told me he would send me a box to ship my laptop to their servicing center in St Louis or wherever it was. It only gets better…

After sending it to St Louis, and hearing nothing from Dell, I received it back from them with a note attached saying they didn’t have the part in stock and that I needed to call the customer service line back and ask them what to do next. This is going on 10 days mind you. So, I called and the representative I talked to seemed not to believe me that they sent it back not fixed. But he said he could either send me the part or have me ship it back to them to install it. Thinking, I would be without a working computer for another 2 weeks, I asked them to ship me the part. So, in other words, 3 weeks later, I finally got my computer working again.

I refuse to buy another Dell, because it’s ridiculous to have a computer break down after 6 months and go through all this hassle just to get it fixed when its still very much under warranty, its not even out of the first year!

By: MattJ

MattJ — Sat, 27 Aug 2005 04:21:32 +0000

From the List of exceptions of the Do Not Call registry

29. If I register my number on the National Do Not Call Registry, will it stop all telemarketing calls?

No. Placing your number on the National Do Not Call Registry will stop most telemarketing calls, but not all. Because of limitations in the jurisdiction of the FTC and FCC, calls from or on behalf of political organizations, charities, and telephone surveyors would still be permitted, as would calls from companies with which you have an existing business relationship, or those to whom youâ€™ve provided express agreement in writing to receive their calls.

32. My number is on the National Do Not Call Registry. After I bought something from a company, a telemarketer representing that organization called me. Is this a violation?

No. By purchasing something from the company, you established a business relationship with the company. As a result, even if you put your number on the National Do Not Call Registry, that company may call you for up to 18 months after your last purchase or delivery from it, or your last payment to it, unless you ask the company not to call again. In that case, the company must honor your request not to call. If they subsequently call you again, they may be subject to a fine of up to $11,000.

Instead of telling him he shouldn’t be calling you, tell him that you’re giving Dell notice through him not to call you any more.